Julius Menn 30Mar2012 Yiddish Book Center
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- Advice, Family history, stories about ancestors, Childhood, Jewish Identity, Yiddish language, Immigration, Migration, Other languages, Literature, Holocaust, Education, Israel, Zionism, Eastern Europe, Soviet Union, United States, Politics and political movements, Yiddish Book Center, Anti-Semitism, World War Two, Hebrew, Books, Julius Menn, Danzig, Warsaw, Vilna, Tel Aviv, Berkeley CA, Goan of Vilna, Victor Hugo, Charles Dickens, Haganah, Tarbut Schools, University of California Berkeley, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1970s, 2012s, Haganah, Chasidic, Hasidic, Mitnagdim, Bialystok, Polish, German, Kabbalah, Yiddish Book Center, National Yiddish Book Center, Wexler Oral History Project, nybc, ybc, Yiddish, Jewish culture,
- Language
- English
Julius Menn, z"l, was interviewed by Lesley Yalen on March 30, 2012, at the Yiddish Book Center. Julius was born in the Danzig area in 1929, and he talks about his early years there. Danzig was an independent, liberal enclave on the Baltic Sea (surrounded by Poland and Germany), created by the Treaty of Versailles at the end of World War I. Julius' father was a businessman from a Hasidic background in Russia. His mother was from an upper class Lithuanian Jewish background. He had a Catholic nanny whom he was very close to and who went with the family when they immigrated to Palestine.
At 6½ years old, Julius moved with his family to Palestine, to Tel Aviv. He liked it there very much, but his family returned to Poland in 1938 or 1939 because his mother missed her home and his father had business dealings he needed to take care of. This was a time when many Jews were trying to leave Europe. Julius is still angry about this. He didn't like being back in Europe, where he was once again a minority and a stranger, didn't speak the dominant language, and where war was looming. During this time he was in Warsaw and Vilna as well as at a family home in the countryside.
The family was able to escape via Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, and Syria. They rode on an old-fashioned cart through the countryside and had to dive into the wheat fields to hide when German bombs fell. His immediate family made it back to Palestine because they still had a British visa, but most of his cousins, extended family, classmates, and friends perished in the war and the Holocaust.
Julius spoke German as a first language, but he spoke Hebrew with his father (who knew it from cheder), spoke halting Russian with his mother (who didn't speak German or Hebrew well) and had to learn Polish and Lithuanian in various schools he attended. (He is now most comfortable in English.) He had no connection to Yiddish for much of his life and in fact, as a young man growing up in Palestine, he looked down on it. The Yiddish Book Center has elevated the language again in his eyes.
Back in Tel Aviv, Julius was part of the new generation of Jews that wanted to put the past behind them. He was a "peaceful Zionist" who wanted a Jewish-Arab federation in Palestine. He worked on a kibbutz in the summers and was very interested in biology. He joined the Haganah and believed in the importance of a Jewish state. He felt estranged from his parents in many ways and eventually left to go to the University of California, Berkeley where he got his undergraduate degree and a PhD. He loved the US then, though now he has conflicted feelings about it.
Julius married a woman he met at Berkeley and had three children, two of whom died in a car accident as children in the 1970s. This great tragedy in part precipitated a divorce with his first wife. He has now been married to his second wife for 20 years and has grandchildren. He actively pursues adult education in topics like history and religion. His family was never religious, but now he goes to shul every week for "the ambiance."
To learn more about the Wexler Oral History Project, visit: http://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/tell-your-story
To cite this interview: Julius Menn Oral History Interview, interviewed by Lesley Yalen, Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project, Karmazin Recording Studio, Yiddish Book Center, March 30, 2012. Video recording, http://archive.org/details/JuliusMenn30mar2012YiddishBookCenter ( [date accessed] )
At 6½ years old, Julius moved with his family to Palestine, to Tel Aviv. He liked it there very much, but his family returned to Poland in 1938 or 1939 because his mother missed her home and his father had business dealings he needed to take care of. This was a time when many Jews were trying to leave Europe. Julius is still angry about this. He didn't like being back in Europe, where he was once again a minority and a stranger, didn't speak the dominant language, and where war was looming. During this time he was in Warsaw and Vilna as well as at a family home in the countryside.
The family was able to escape via Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, and Syria. They rode on an old-fashioned cart through the countryside and had to dive into the wheat fields to hide when German bombs fell. His immediate family made it back to Palestine because they still had a British visa, but most of his cousins, extended family, classmates, and friends perished in the war and the Holocaust.
Julius spoke German as a first language, but he spoke Hebrew with his father (who knew it from cheder), spoke halting Russian with his mother (who didn't speak German or Hebrew well) and had to learn Polish and Lithuanian in various schools he attended. (He is now most comfortable in English.) He had no connection to Yiddish for much of his life and in fact, as a young man growing up in Palestine, he looked down on it. The Yiddish Book Center has elevated the language again in his eyes.
Back in Tel Aviv, Julius was part of the new generation of Jews that wanted to put the past behind them. He was a "peaceful Zionist" who wanted a Jewish-Arab federation in Palestine. He worked on a kibbutz in the summers and was very interested in biology. He joined the Haganah and believed in the importance of a Jewish state. He felt estranged from his parents in many ways and eventually left to go to the University of California, Berkeley where he got his undergraduate degree and a PhD. He loved the US then, though now he has conflicted feelings about it.
Julius married a woman he met at Berkeley and had three children, two of whom died in a car accident as children in the 1970s. This great tragedy in part precipitated a divorce with his first wife. He has now been married to his second wife for 20 years and has grandchildren. He actively pursues adult education in topics like history and religion. His family was never religious, but now he goes to shul every week for "the ambiance."
To learn more about the Wexler Oral History Project, visit: http://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/tell-your-story
To cite this interview: Julius Menn Oral History Interview, interviewed by Lesley Yalen, Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project, Karmazin Recording Studio, Yiddish Book Center, March 30, 2012. Video recording, http://archive.org/details/JuliusMenn30mar2012YiddishBookCenter ( [date accessed] )
- Abstract
- Julius Menn, Holocaust Museum volunteer translator born in Danzig in 1929, was interviewed by Lesley Yalen on March 30, 2012, at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts.
- Addeddate
- 2013-06-25 14:41:54
- Artifacts
- 240
- Citation
- Julius Menn Oral History Interview, interviewed by Lesley Yalen, Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project, Karmazin Recording Studio, Yiddish Book Center, March 30, 2012. Video recording, http://archive.org/details/JuliusMenn30mar2012YiddishBookCenter ( [date accessed] )
- Color
- color
- Controlled-themes
- Advice | Family histories | Childhood | Jewish Identity | Yiddish language | Immigration and migration | Languages | Literature | Holocaust | Education | Zionism | Politics and political movements | Yiddish Book Center | Antisemitism | World War II | Hebrew language | Books | Youth group
- Date-themes
- 1920s | 1930s | 1940s | 1950s | 1970s | 2010s
- Excerpts
- 1793, 1794, 1795, 1796, 1797, 1798, 1799, 1800
- Geographic-themes
- Warszawa, Poland | Vilnius, Lithuania | Tel Aviv, Israel | Berkeley, California | California | Białystok, Poland | Lithuania | Israel | Eastern Europe | Soviet Union | United States
- Ia_orig__runtime
- 87 minutes 48 seconds
- Identifier
- JuliusMenn30mar2012YiddishBookCenter
- Interview-date
- 3/30/2012
- Interview-location
- Karmazin Recording Studio
- Misc-themes
- Polish | German
- Narrator-birth-place
- Danzig, Poland
- Narrator-birth-year
- 1929
- Narrator-first-name
- Julius
- Narrator-last-name
- Menn
- Organization-themes
- Haganah
- People-themes
- Julius Menn | Charles Dickens
- Run time
- 1:27:48
- Sound
- sound
- Uncontrolled-themes
- Warszawa, Poland | Vilnius, Lithuania | Tel Aviv, Israel | Berkeley, California | California | Białystok, Poland | Lithuania | Israel | Eastern Europe | Soviet Union | United States | Julius Menn | Charles Dickens Haganah | Hasidic | kibbutz, 1920s | 1930s | 1940s | 1950s | 1970s | 2010s, Polish | German
- Uncontrolled-themes2
- Julius Menn | Danzig | Warszawa, Poland | Vilnius, Lithuania | Tel Aviv, Israel | Berkeley, California | California | Goan of Vilna | Victor Hugo | Charles Dickens | Haganah | Tarbut Schools | University of California Berkeley | 1920s | 1930s | 1940s | 1950s | 1970s | 2010s | Hasidic | Mitnagdim | Białystok, Poland | Polish | German | Kabbalah | United States Holocaust Memorial Museum | Lithuania | kibbutz
- Wohp-interview-id
- 279
- Yiddish-themes
- Hasidic | kibbutz
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